What to do?

Should a graphic designer charge per hour or for a complete project?

Should a graphic designer charge per hour or for a complete project?

The world is fast moving away from the traditional nine to five jobs. Freelancing is the new in thing. Even people with full time jobs are using their skills to earn money as freelancers. One of the largest amounts of freelance work is available in the genre of graphic designing.

The charging rates of a freelance depend upon a million factors. They include the region you reside in. It also includes the region where you are acquiring work from. However, there is an everlasting debate about how to charge your clients. There are two ways of doing so. One is hourly rates and the other is charging for the whole project. Charging by the hour The first method usually used by most freelancers is charging on hourly basis. There are certain advantages of charging by the hour. You can choose the rate per hour depending upon the difficulty of the project. It is also easier for the client to understand the breakdown of the work you provide them.

However, the disadvantages of charging per hour include the client getting annoyed for paying for more hours. This happens when the project takes longer. Clients will also often compare your hourly rates with less professional designers which charge less. This usually undermines your abilities as a good and professional graphic designer.

Charging for the complete project Charging for the complete project can be done in two ways. The first one is based on the timeline of the project. The second one is based on market prices of similar projects. The former gives you the advantage of using your hourly breakdown to calculate the price of the whole project.

The later can help you use the market rate to gauge what you want to charge the client.

However, using hour method gets you paid less at times if you spend more hours than calculated. It is difficult afterwards to make the client pay more because you used up more hours. Another

disadvantage of using the timeline is that at times you cannot perceive how much time a project will take. Due to the demand of new designs all the time, the time line can change making you charge less for more work.

The disadvantage of using the market rate is handling difficult clients. Once they agree to a complete rate and then you deliver them the design. However, they think that they paid more and then keep asking for revisions. This requires more time every time you make a change for the same quoted price.

What to Choose?

After getting to know the advantages and disadvantages of both payment forms, what should you choose? There is no best option for two same designers. If you are new on the block, charging per hour is the best option. However, if you know exactly how your work pans out, charging per project is the best option.

Therefore, using the hourly rate is the safest option. Even when you choose the project based payment option use basic hourly breakdown to calculate the project cost.